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Thursday, March 28
The Indiana Daily Student

opinion

COLUMN: Hoosier voters should choose Choice in November

Indiana has one of the most expansive school voucher programs in the country. In other words, Indiana allows parents to decide what is best for their children.

The Indiana Choice program, established under Gov. Mitch Daniels and expanded by Gov. Mike Pence’s administration, allows qualifying families to reclaim the portion of their tax dollars that would have gone to public education spending and use it to pursue other educational options.

However, this program is not without its detractors, among them Democratic gubernatorial candidate John Gregg. He’s repeatedly spoken against this program and gone so far as to say he is totally against it.

His main contention seems to be this siphons money from public schools for private or parochial schools because education funding in Indiana is based on the number of students enrolled. He has said he is “not a fan of vouchers,” because “those are public education dollars.”

This line of thinking misses the point entirely. The goal of public education funding is to increase opportunity for students, not to operate a large educational bureaucracy for the fun of it. The idea of public vs. private educational dollars is foolish.

To put it mildly, who the hell does he think he is?

There are only educational dollars, and John Gregg, in his infinite wisdom, does not know how best to educate every one of the state’s more than one million students. 

The parent that reads their child bedtime stories and makes sure their child's homework is done before the television comes on is in fact the one best positioned to decide what educational opportunities to pursue, not the local government.

More than 33,000 families, accounting for some 3 percent of the state’s students, in the state have made this choice already. Gregg does not know better for these students than their parents. Yet he has promised to roll back the Choice program and strip families of their ideal educational option.

That is the heart of the voucher issue. Children belong to their parents, not the state, and it is for that reason it is the parent’s right to choose how their child is educated. Those opposed to vouchers demean parenthood by stripping parents of the dignity of choice.

Gregg’s opponent, Republican Lt. Gov. Eric Holcomb, offers an attractive alternative. As someone who worked with the Pence administration in expanding school choice across the state and a vocal supporter of said program, Holcomb respects parents’ most sacred right.

Both candidates are asking for the right to represent Hoosiers as governor. Instead of the top-down, burdensome plan offered by Gregg, Hoosiers would be wise to choose Holcomb and choose Choice.

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